Looking forward to 2024, "innovation + internationalization" is expected to become an important main line of the medical device industry

Looking forward to the market outlook for Medical Devices, some institutions believe that "innovation + internationalization" is expected to become one of the important themes in the medical device field in 2024. In addition to pharmaceuticals, medical equipment is a segmented sector that systematically has the potential to go overseas. Low-value consumables, high-value consumables and medical equipment all have the logic to go overseas.

 On the road to going overseas, many local equipment companies have already embarked on the road of exploration. For example, the financial report released by United Imaging Medical shows that in the first three quarters of 2023, United Imaging Medical's overseas revenue accounted for 13.8% of total revenue, a year-on-year increase of nearly 40%, which is much higher than the growth rate of the Chinese market. As of the end of September 2023, United Imaging Medical has established 30 regional headquarters and subsidiaries around the world, its global service engineer team has exceeded 1,000 people, and it has 17 overseas service centers. In addition, 43 products have obtained EU CE certification, 12 of which have passed MDR certification and can be sold to more than 60 countries and regions. 43 products have passed US FDA certification, and the sales network covers major developed and emerging markets around the world.

 The performance report released by Mindray Medical shows that the international market of Mindray Medical achieved operating income of 10.16 billion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, a year-on-year increase of 14.2%. Thanks to the company's continued breakthroughs in high-end customer base overseas and accelerated promotion of localized platform construction, its international market growth accelerated significantly in the third quarter of this year, with an increase of 23.0%, and the growth rate in developing countries further increased to more than 30%.

 It is reported that Mindray Medical has officially launched its overseas strategy since 2000. In the global market, Mindray Medical has reached nearly 700 new high-end customers, and more than 650 existing high-end customers have achieved horizontal breakthroughs in more products, exporting China's high-end medical device products to developed countries.

 For Medical Devices, overseas markets have broad prospects. An organization pointed out in a research report that the global medical device market exceeded 3.2 trillion yuan in 2019, five times that of the domestic market; after successfully going overseas, the accessible market of major medical device tracks will expand by 3-9 times. Obviously, overseas markets are worthy of the yearning of all local medical device companies.

 According to data, the import scale of China's medical device industry has shown an increasing trend year by year from 2017 to 2021. However, from the current point of view, my country's exports of medical device products are mainly low-value medical consumables and mid-to-low-end medical equipment, and there are fewer exports of high-end products with higher barriers.

 Regarding the international development of the medical device field, the industry said that low-value consumables companies have successfully achieved large-scale overseas expansion earlier. As for high-value consumables, although the current overseas share is generally low, the future is promising. Currently, there are many Few domestic enterprises are on the way. In terms of IVD, the internationalization strategy is also highly regarded by companies. In the future, domestic IVD companies are expected to achieve faster international layout. It is reported that at present, Chinese manufacturers are continuously upgrading their technologies and products. In some fields, the quality of innovative device products is already comparable to that of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

 Analysts believe that as Chinese manufacturers continue to upgrade their technologies and products, and the quality of some innovative products catches up with Europe and the United States, it may be a matter of course for high-end innovative products to go overseas in the future.